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Fossil Free Menno is about a big problem, a medium-sized denomination and a simple spirited idea.

The problem is climate change, the denomination is Mennonite Church Canada, and the idea is a refusal to invest in the companies that profit most from destruction of the climate.

Fossil Free Menno is not an organization with grandiose visions, but an opportunity to sign a little letter—the Open Letter on this site. It is an imperfect, incomplete step by people who believe the church must lead.

It is a call, a prayer, a small step of faith.

At the core of Fossil Free Menno is the hope, angst and care of all those who have signed the Open Letter. Scroll down or see the menu bar above to sign and to see who else has signed.

Updated April 25, 2014 – For the complete list of signatories, see the Signatories page. The list below is not complete.
Updated July 2, 2014 – This page provides a summary and welcome. Although this initial info is dated from several months ago (and has not changed), other parts of the website are updated regularly (and sometimes daily). Please check these pages for more current information and resources. Thank you.

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If you wish to add your name to the list of MC Canada-connected people who have already signed the letter (see the list in the blog post below), email fossilfreemenno@gmail.com. Put “sign me up,” or something equally logical, in the subject line. Also, pls include your home congregation or the congregation you are most connected to or were most recently connected to. Include additional relevant affiliations if you wish.

If you wish, add a 140-character long statement about why you want to sign.

Divestment is a strategy that has worked in relation to the tobacco industry, Darfur and, or course, apartheid.

Divestment is also an opportunity for re-investment. That is, dropping investments in companies that benefit from climate change and increasing investment in companies whose business model involves moving the world away from climate change.

Divestment does not involve shutting down the fossil fuel industry or abandoning life as we know it.

The case for divestment (and some common objections)

Fossil fuel divestment is an ethically imperfect, strategically important chance to move the climate discussion forward (hopefully toward further action).

To sign the Open Letter on this site is to say, in essence, that we need to keep looking at what more we can do to address climate change and we need to do so collectively.

That said, there are some objections to divestment that are worthy of consideration:

1.) It’s hypocritical. I just filled my tank with gas, how can I call for divestment?

Even if we use fossil fuels, we don’t have to pad our portfolios with global warming profits. There is an undeniable element of duplicity, but are two wrongs (burning fuel and investing in climate change) somehow better than one (just burning the stuff)?

If it’s wrong to wreck the planet, it’s doubly wrong to profit from the wreckage.

But of course, things are more complex than just that.

Divestment is a carefully thought out strategy to address climate-related public policy by weakening the companies that have successfully lobbied against policies that would make it easier for all of us to reduce our climate impacts. These companies not only provide us with what have become the necessities of our lives, they actively and aggressively resist public policy that would reduce carbon emissions.

The case for the movement has been made most clearly by Bill McKibben, who wrote one of the first books about climate change for a general audience in 1989 and who Time Magazine calls “the planet’s best green journalist.” He is also vocal about his Christian faith. Many of you will be familiar with him.

In summer 2012, Rolling Stone published a passionate article in which McKibben laid out his argument for divestment. The summary:
– We’re headed for climate doom.
– Efforts to date to halt global warming have failed.
– Change on an individual level is important but such change takes something we don’t have: time.
– Broader policy change is really the only hope, esp placing a price on carbon (proceeds to be invested in energy alternatives).
– Despite public support for such policy, fossil fuel companies have successfully stymied it.
– Divestment is a long shot, but maybe the best shot we have.
– It worked in relation to tobacco, Darfur and apartheid.

McKibben’s argument isn’t perfect, but it may be the best we have.

Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good. Let not a measure of hypocrisy paralyze us from doing the halting good we can. If only people of 100% ethical purity did good, there would be a whole lot of us wringing our hands on the sidelines of our childrens’ and grandchildrens’ unenviable future.

Some day, younger generations will ask our generations what we were thinking.

Encouraging Mennonite Church Canada to study divestment in no way precludes individual measures to reduce GHG emissions. Nor does it preclude faith communities from lamenting our oil entanglement and working through the spiritual stress around that (as per the pipeline prayer event last year).

Freeing ourselves completely of oil is a paralyzing thought, and we need to be attentive to that reality. At the same time we need to act creatively and collectively to take the reasonable, life-giving, earth-saving measures before us (as many of you do).

Some investors go this route, encouraging change by means of shareholder resolutions and direct communication with company executives. Other people say not only that there is little evidence that this works but that the fundamental core objective of these companies is to burn as much fossil fuel as possible. Shareholder action won’t change that.

In his 2012 article, Bill McKibben noted that some of the big oil companies––he uses BP as an example–—made forays into alternative energy. “But,” he writes, “its investments in alternative energy were never more than a tiny fraction of its budget for hydrocarbon exploration, and after a few years, many of those were wound down as new CEOs insisted on returning to the company’s ‘core business.’

“In December, BP finally closed its solar division. Shell shut down its solar and wind efforts in 2009. The five biggest oil companies have made more than $1 trillion in profits since the millennium – there’s simply too much money to be made on oil and gas and coal to go chasing after zephyrs and sunbeams.”

The letter is about ethical and moral responsibility. It is about responding to a global phenomenon that directly affects growing number of “the least of these” every year. It is about respecting the earth that God created. It is for, within and about church.

Theologians have been slogging away on this stuff for a long time. We wanted a concise call to action, not a theological treatise. We assume that those who sign bring the full weight of their faith and theology to this matter.

4.) The letter is an affront to our faith leaders; that’s not how we operate.

MC Canada leaders have shown considerable willingness to address climate issues. The letter acknowledges this and encourages continued work. It is meant as respectful, constructive participation in church process.

5.) I’m not into click-here-to-change-the-world schemes.

We’re not either. But this seemed like a logical, though imperfect, way to gather and focus the concerns and energies of MC Canada people across the country and beyond. It is a letter within a faith community, not an anonymous, out-of-the-blue-ether online blitz.

6.) Too political.

Mennonites of the MC Canada variety have long been deeply involved in many political matters—abortion, same sex marriage, voting, restorative justice, peace, Aboriginal issues, etc. Much of what we do and buy has political implications. Perhaps it is time to give this old, generic, go-to Mennonite excuse a rest and talk about what is really at stake and what our public responsibility is.

Finally, the following are a few resources that might help you discern whether divestment is a sound strategy in our collective efforts to engage climate change.

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Update – April 21, 2014 – In order to, hopefully, make this website easier to navigate, comments have been moved to a separate page on this website. Please find us there. Thanks.

The following are comments sent by people who have signed the Open Letter.

As people who love the Creator, let us realize how our actions affect ALL She creates and join a global movement that advocates for the health of the earth.
– Hannah Enns

I sign this letter because I am inspired to be part of a process, however imperfect and small, that will invite members of our Mennonite community into an awareness that is vital to our continued justice and peace work. The first steps towards redemptive change may be small, but when many step together, ripples and blooms are seen.
– Katie Doke Sawatzky

I use fossil fuels of course but would like to have other options offered that use less. So to invest in making the fossil fuel industry stronger is nonsensical. We need to stop exploration of fossil fuels and look at diminishing our consumption of energy and consumption in general of goods. Let’s invest in alternative cleaner energies.
– Luke Martin

Leaders need help sometimes to set policy direction. All of us are struggling to make changes personnally and professionally. If we had strong visible leadership on this issue who kows where this will lead.
– Brent Gouthro

Divestment is for our generation what conscientious objection was for our grandparents. The war against creation is being waged with our dollars now, not our bodies.
– Marcus Rempel

Faith calls us to action, and it is time for the church to take action about climate change.
– Sara Brubacher

To live at peace means living peacefully with the people around us, the animals and birds around us, the plants around us, even the soil and the insects around us. The way many of our churches are operating now is perpetuating violence against the planet as we presume to be superior and dominate rather than realize our deep dependence on all of creation.
Thank you for this initiative.
– Amy Peters

The situation is urgent and we must do what we can to make changes.
– Stan Olson

If we want to change this world for the better, we have to make the necessary changes first within ourselves and our communities.
– Anna-Marie Epp-Janzen

I heartily endorse the Open Letter to MC Canada. An intense carbon based future is an agenda of big corporations and makes no sense to the health of our earth, of which we are part.
– Wayne MacDonald

Climate change is a moral issue, and as people of faith we are called to love our neighbours, not make their lives impossible.
– Christine Penner Polle

I began researching likely effects of forecasts of climate change in 1984. I contributed to IPCC’s [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] assessments for which that organization was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.
– Henry Reiger

A small but significant way to connect values and finances and challenge the divide between conscience and capitalism.
– Joe Heikman

Climate change is happening. May God guide us on how we can help to save our environment. We all need to do our part.
– Helen Rempel

We need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and support our First Nations in their efforts in this area as protectors of the earth.
– Lorne Brandt

This is an important issue for our faith community to address.
– Evelyn Rempel Petkau

Blogs I Follow

We have the solutions to the climate crisis. What is missing to solve the climate crisis is political will. We the people need to tell our elected officials it’s time that polluting industries pay a “dumping” fee, and that we want the money returned to households to help us all make the shift to the clean energy economy of the 21st Century. The price of more delay is economic and human disaster. Our children deserve better.